eDimensional - Flight Sim Controllers
Voice Buddy 3.0

Review 2005

Installation

First I downloaded the 120 meg zip file, which extracted to an installer.exe file. If you only have a dialup connection, you can order the software on CD.

Clicking on the .exe started the install and 30 seconds later the program advised that it would install "Microsoft SAPI Voice Recognition Engine 5.1". This took another 60 seconds and the install was complete. Painless !

Here is the main interface, all you need to see most of the time when using Voice Buddy.



You should run the Microphone Wizard to set your mike levels.

Then run the voice training module. This only takes a few minutes and involves reading on onscreen explanation of what the Microsoft Voice Recognition software is and how it works. I didn't do this the first time and suffered some inconsistent results in-flight.

This was partly aggravated by my heavy breathing in flight, especially in air combat. I alleviated that problem by buying a cheap headset with a foam windfilter over the mike.

A glimpse at the help menu alerted me to the importance of doing the training, and luckily this had the effect of retraining the sofware and increasing recognition to what seems like 98%.... which is probably better than they get in the Eurofighter Typhoon , which costs considerably more